I’m going through John Adams by David McCullough. The book itself is great. A wealth of interesting facts about a truly great man, if not tedious due to so much detail about very irrelevant info (my God man who cares about that painting so kuch that you had to ramble about it for 3 minutes?), but it’s the audio itself I find unbearable. The reader desperately needs a glass of water to the point that it sounds disgusting. The deep breaths are really off putting as well. It wouldn’t bother me if it was once or twice, but it’s all the way through.
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Certain accents put me off. London mostly.
On the other hand, listen to Shelby Foote talking about the Civil War. I’d marry that accent!
I was listening to an audiobook of some Stephen king book (can’t recall which one it was) and the narrator had been reading everything normally until he got to a dramatic sentence where he literally sounded like he was crying in agony lol.. I was not expecting it at all and it was really disturbing
Was that Nelson Runger? Mine was narrated by Nelson Runger.
I couldn’t find a good reader for The Federalist Papers.
Drag Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was an interesting book, and it did take place in Poland, but the heavy Polish accent of the narrator made it very hard to enjoy the text. It was painfully obvious that English was not their first language.
I’m listening to the same book right now!
I’m about 70% of the way through and the narrator is not my favorite and I see what you mean about irrelevant details. I’m not sure how the book was put together but it seems to me like a lot of it is based on letters we have from or to him. When details like this come up I assume there is substantial writing on the topic and thus the author includes it rather than editing it out. Not defending the author’s decision, but it makes it easier for me to listen to.
This doesn’t answer your question at all but since I’m listening to the same thing right now I thought I’d throw out my view on it.
I listened (part way) to the audiobook of The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary – the book is from a female and male POV, but only a female narrator was used. Each chapter from the male POV was like the voice a girlfriend does when they’re doing a mocking impression of their boyfriend – totally unlistenable!
I once tried listening to *Four Past Midnight* (Stephen King), but it was a downloaded copy which I think was taken from an audiocassette – transferred using a machine which badly needed servicing. The sound quality was off and the sound was very warbly (wow and flutter, for fellow tape guys).
I’m a heavy audiobook listener and gosh there are so many bad and overrated narrators out there.
N0s482–Joe Hill Audiobook read by Kate Mulgrew. She’s a talented actor but there is a small character, a
cop emigrated from India, and Mulgrew gives her a full on Apu accent. She also does a grating child voice that was jarring, but arguably fitting for the story.
“The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. There is this horrific, high-pitched ringing sound marking every new section/chapter. Eckart read it himself and his voice is very serene, the contrast was incredibly jaring. I wanted to listen to it a few times in a row to really mull it over and barely got through it once. No idea what they were thinking putting that sound in there.
Listened to the audiobook for Cloud Atlas because I didn’t give myself enough time to read it for a book club. One of the worst books I’ve ever had to sit through. Five stories that are slightly intertwined. But fuck me, it was a tedious listen. The stories were so uninteresting. The characters were insufferable. Hated every second of that book.
Got a non-fiction audiobook that was narrated in the AI robot voice! NO! So painful. It was the only option, so I suffered through it.
The version of Dune I got on Audible uses actors for some of the characters, but only about half the time. The inconsistency is jarring and intrusive, and especially disappointing because the guy they cast for Baron Harkonnen is SO GOOD.
I really wanted the audiobook for The Rook by Daniel O’Malley but the narrator? uptalks? every single sentence? I wanted to pull my hair out?
But also sadly I couldn’t do the Murderbot audiobooks bc the narrator wasn’t androgynous enough and it was wildly jarring to hear some dude relating its thoughts and feelings.
Honestly, if I can’t stand someone’s voice I just cannot listen to that audiobook. I’ll get two sentences in, decide I hate it, and just return the book. It’s really hard for me to stay focused on audiobooks anyway, so if the author’s voice is scratchy or they pronounce something strangely, I just know it’s a doomed listening experience for me.
The worst is if it’s narrated by a man, and he does a breathy, high-pitched voice for female characters. Instant return. I just can’t handle it. Can’t do it!
edit: Actually, wait, the version of Great Expectations I listened to had a narrator who did different voices for the women in the book, but I loved it, because he just had such a humorous delivery. His Miss Havisham was actually hilarious in a way that felt fitting for the tone of the book, so it wasn’t distracting. Plus, he just sounded like he really enjoyed narrating that book. I guess it has to really hit the mark to avoid being distracting!
Narrators make or break a book for me. So much so that I will search for the ones I like best to find new books.
Most books read by the author. Writing a book and reading it are very different skills, even if the book is a memoir! I know ow everyone loved I’m Glad My Mom Died, and it was fine, but I hated McCurdy reading of it.
Ready Player One was already an insufferable book, but paired with Wil Wheaton’s (who I adore) snarky, sarcastic read, it was painful.
I listened to You Shouldn’t Have Come Here, and I think it’s supposed to be ambiguous whether the male character is a good guy or not. But the narrator’s voice is SO CREEPY that I couldn’t stand the character the whole time.
Amy Landon is pretty prolific and I think she’s terrible. She sounds condescending.
On a different note, Not necessarily the narrator’s fault, but listening to a lot of Michael Crichtons books and sometimes the narrator just has to read numbers for 15-20 minutes. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Especially if Im driving and have no way to skip ahead.
The worst one I’ve ever heard was “Between Two Fires” by Chris Buehlman. It’s a fantastic book by an amazing artist, but the narrator reads it like he’s reading a children’s book. He’ll switch voices, very poorly.
The Saxon Stories (Last Kingdom series). The reader for the first three novels was FANTASTIC. They then switched readers and the new guy was some stuffy posh guy that had Uhtred speaking in the Queen’s English and pronouncing places with modern place names/pronunciations rather than the Anglo-Saxon/Danish pronunciations. The finally settled on a decent reader for the last chunk of the series, but books 4-8 or so are a MESS with the different terrible readers.
Honestly, I can’t stand Roy Dotrice’s character voices in the song of ice and fire audiobooks. His narration is good but too many of the characters sound downright cartoonish and frankly annoying
It Ends With Us by Corllen Hover – wish I hadn’t wasted my time on that one
Worst audiobook I ever listened to was March by Geraldine Brooks. The narrator had this juicy, plummy voice and he sounded like he hadn’t had a chance to swallow his spit. You could hear his lips popping from the pooled up spit, and he kind of slurped it up. It was horrible. I have a strong visual imagination, and I just kept picturing a rather large individual with big wet lips glistening with spittle. I don’t know how I finished that one, but I’ve never been so happy to see the end of a book!
I listened to the German version of 50 Shades of Grey and had to stop after he told her “ich ficke hart” because in English that might sound hot or sexy but in German it sounded like my teacher scratched her red fingernail across the black board and I wish I had read that line instead of heard it. It made it more real und unreal at the same time. I still shiver when I think about it. Anyways, that’s when I stopped that series and never picked it up again. Not the audiobook not the written book
Appeasing Hitler read by John Sessions.
I really wanted to read that book. The reviews were awful on audible, but I gave it a shot anyway thinking it couldn’t be that bad. It’s worse. I’d swear he’s either hungover or drunk throughout. Mumbling parts and shouting others. Weird inflections. So frustrating since it’s a bit heavy going for the Kindle and I just want to listen to it on the way to work.
I listed to meditations by Marcus Aurelius , and the first version had multiple narrators and they were awful. I felt like they’ve were reading the material in such a disjointed way that the words had no flow. Also their audio quality varies greatly between the narrators.
I found on Libby another version by a single narrator who actually could read out loud with some flow. Massive improvement and made the listen very enjoyable.
I have never listened to an audiobook but your post scared me.
I remember listening to practical magic and it is not clean sound behind the narrator. When i had my airpod pros in with sound insolation my attention kept being grabbed by slight background murmurs
Rainy Season from Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King. For some unfathomable reason they got Yeardley Smith to narrate it and it’s like nails down a chalkboard.
I work in publishing and have to read a lot as part of my job. I have a long commute so I listen to a lot of pre-release audiobooks and I usually dread the ones that are narrated by men. I have nothing against men but even with the bass turned all the way down there are still so many moments where there are booms in the audio from them over-enunciating words or breathing heavily. Don’t even get me started on when they try to vocalize women characters. Some of them are also extremely monotonous and I can’t handle it! There are a few really good voice actors that are men but they all seem to be British. I don’t even have a thing for accents, it’s just I find British men have a lot more variance in their voice and they tend not to be as deep.
For me, it was “Room” by Emma Donahue. The novel is written from the perspective of a child, so I understand why the narrator tried to sound child-like. But it was over the top and ridiculous. The writing itself did a good job of taking a horrible and cruel reality and portraying it through the innocent eyes of a child, but the narration sounded so silly that I couldn’t take it seriously.
Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb.
The series consists of 4 trilogies and 1 4 book series. 3 of the trilogies are in first person from the same character. The last of those 3 is the last trilogy of the series and has characters from all 13 books prior.
The narrator for the third trilogy pronounced nearly every single name and city differently than how it was said in the THIRTEEN prior books. He isn’t even consistent throughout the 3 he narrates. It’s so consistently wrong that part of me thinks it’s intentional. Like he read the other books and thought to himself “how can I say this name differently”. It couldn’t have happened this consistently by accident lol It was the most jarring thing and repeatedly broke the immersion. He’d also swap voices here and there throughout the series. It was quite a mess tbh. The series itself is amazing though and that last trilogy was an emotional roller coaster
I listened to one book where the narrator talked in this voice somewhere between a 20’s radio show and a vaudeville performer. It ruined the book.
I couldn’t stand 3-Body Problem. Not sure if the translation or the narration or the story was to blame. I think the other two things would have been better if the narration didn’t suck.
Stephen King narrates Needful Things, and it’s pretty great, however the chapters begin and end with the most awful plinky plonky piano tunes – it sounds like a toddler bashing a Bontempi.
Absolutely unnecessary and really jarring, plus they fade out SK really quickly by drowning the chapter end with it, so you lose the last sentences if its a quiet level.
“The Secret History,” by Donna Tartt was a horrible listen. The author read it, and her inability to make the characters sound distinct was nil, and worse, the only voice she did do was so weird and annoying that it completely pulled me out of the story.
Could. Not. Finish.
Where’d you go Bernadette: WORST CHILD VOICE EVERRR! I have no idea what possessed this narrator to do this obnoxious, bratty impersonation of a child’s voice, but I wanted to drop kick that character and never made it to the end. Didn’t even make it to the middle.
I’ve been listening to a really interesting podcast about a TV show that I’ve loved for nearly 30 years but they have a frequent special guest who also suffers from what I call ‘dry/sticky mouth’.
Every few words are punctuated by a revolting, smacking, tongue-sticking swallow that sounds like it was deliberately directed into the microphone and I cannot bear it. On the episodes they ‘guest’ on I have to up the speed to 1.9- or even 2x speed which makes it less pronounced.
But I know it’s there.
My worst audiobook experience was a mystery and the only sound effect was about two-thirds through the story. The sound effect was an extremely loud gunshot. I was driving at the time and the sound was so loud and unexpected it caused me to jerk the steering wheel and it almost caused a collision.